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Technical comments on our species richness-multifunctionality paper in Science

The last
issue of Science
contains a Technical Comment on our article “Plant species
richness and ecosystem multifunctionality in global drylands”, written by Tommaso
Jucker & David A. Coomes, together with our reply. These comments discuss how abiotic stress may
affect the global relationship between plant species richness and ecosystem
multifunctionality that we described in the above mentioned article, which was
published in Science on January. I copy below the abstract of both Technical
Comments, which summarize their major points:

Comment on “Plant Species Richness and
Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands”

Tommaso
Jucker & David A. Coomes

Maestre et
al. (Reports, 13 January 2012, p. 214) reported a general, but weak, positive
relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality in global
drylands. We show that the strength of this relationship changes consistently
along multiple environmental gradients, becoming strongly positive in stressed
habitats. This suggests that biodiversity loss may have especially strong
consequences in harsh environments.

Response to Comment on “Plant Species Richness
and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands”

Jucker and
Coomes claim that the relationship between plant species richness (biodiversity)
and ecosystem multifunctionality (B-EMf) reported in our study changes along
environmental gradients. We point out flaws in their analytical approach and
then reanalyze our data to further demonstrate that the B-EMf relationship does
not substantially change along environmental gradients.

Jucker
& Coomes ask a very interesting question: does the B-EMf relationship change
along environmental gradients? They create a new stress index and evaluate how
plant species richness affect ecosystem multifunctionality depending on the
abiotic stress of the study sites (low, medium and high). They found that this
relationship varies depending on the degree of stress, questioning the global
relationship we found in our study. In our response we re-analyze the data from
Jucker & Coomes, and found important flaws in their calculations of
the stress index, which invalidate their
conclusions. We also re-analyze our own data, and found that the inclusion of
abiotic stress did not change the findings and conclusions of our original article:
there is a significant positive B-EMf relationship in global drylands and that
species richness is an important positive predictor of ecosystem
multifunctionality.

Our article
has received attention from the media (check here for a selection of news about it) and our
colleagues since its publication. In addition to the commentary by Jucker &
Coomes, our article has received three F1000 evaluations, and has been the subjects of
several blog posts (Ted Hart and Bob O´Harablogs), which led to lively discussions. It also has been cited by
reviews on biodiversity recently published in Nature (Cardinale
et al. 2012) and Science (Naeem et al. 2012).We
certainly welcome this attention and discussion on our work, which we hope will
stimulate further studies on the mechanistic basis of the relationships found,
and on how we can use, manage and restore biodiversity to improve the structure
and functioning in dryland ecosystems. This is an urgent task to fight against
desertification and global environmental change, and to improve the livelihood
of the millions of people that live in the drylands of the world.

If you are
interested on this topic please check also some recent papers from the Maestre
lab carried out with biological soil crusts, which explore how different biotic
attributes, including species richness, composition and spatial pattern, affect
ecosystem functioning:

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We are looking for a motivated candidate to apply to a competitive call from the Regional Government of Madrid for funding a 4-yr post-doctoral contract to work in our lab. The requeriments of the candidates are the following:

* Strong publication record in any of the areas related to the research we do in the lab (for details about we do and recent publications check our webpage). We are particularly interested in candidates with expertise in microbial ecology, bioinformatics or remote sensing.* The candidate should hold a PhD awarded between 1 January 2013 and 20 June 2016* The candidate should have been working (under a contract or fellowship, proof required) outside Spain for at least one of the last two years.

Please note that this is not a job offer, as the candidate will apply to a competitive call (a total of 25 contracts will be awarded for all knowledge areas). All the details of this call (in Spanish) can be found here. If awarded, the person would work in the Dryland Ecology…

We are looking for a motivated candidate to apply to a competitive postdoctoral call ("Juan de la Cierva formación") from the Spanish Government that fully fund a 2-yr postdoctoral contract to work in in the Dryland Ecology and Global Change Lab. The requeriments of the candidate are the following:

* We are particularly interested in candidates with expertise in any of the following areas: microbial ecology, bioinformatics, lichen taxonomy, biocrust ecology, remote sensing or ecological modelling.* The candidate should hold a PhD awarded between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2016.* The candidate should have a strong publication record, with articles in journals included in the first quartile of the JCR database (the call is highly competitive and succesfull candidates are those with a strong publication record).* Previous research stays and/or postdoctoral experience outside Spain (for Spanish candidates) or a Phd from a non-Spanish university (for candidates from outside Sp…